His principal job was to carry water - albeit more elegantly than most - but here Fernando Redondo walked on it. His famous trick on Henning Berg, a deluxe Cruyff turn, would surely have established itself in the football lexicon if it wasn't so good as to be almost unrepeatable (although Abou Diaby did manage it at Villa Park in December, and even scored the goal himself at the end of the move). Redondo, facing the touchline, backheeled the ball through Berg's legs before running on and finding Raul in front of an open net. Berg had about as much idea of the ball's whereabouts as Paulie Walnuts and Christopher Moltisanti did of the Russian's whereabouts in the Pine Barrens episode of the Sopranos.

It was the champagne moment of an individual and collective performance that went into folklore, a stunningly symbolic dethroning of the European champions. Both sides had gone at each other from the off, and even at 0-2 United were in the game, with Roy Keane having just missed an open goal. But Redondo's trick had the devastating finality of a perfect conversational putdown. United were struck dumb. The rest of us would be talking about it for years.

With his body unwilling, Diego Maradona spent most of Italia 90 doing little more than winding everyone up supremely, but he still had enough in the tank to perform two of his beloved vaccinations on the two sides he wanted to penetrate the most. His penalty in the semi-final shoot-out against Italy, in front of a Naples crowd that had turned against him for the day, was unbelievably cocky, the football equivalent of laughing at a funeral, and his creation of Claudio Caniggia's winner against Brazil is legendary.

Brazil had absolutely battered Argentina, hitting the woodwork three times and mistaking the Argentina keeper Sergio Goycochea for a coconut shy, and Maradona had been at best peripheral. Then, in the 81st minute, he picked up the ball a fraction inside his own half, and suddenly it was Mexico 86 all over again. There were six players between him and the goal, and another three right behind him, but a combination of sublime skill and ludicrous strength, mainly when Ricardo Rocha basically tried to sit on him, ripped Brazil open. At first they seem almost amused by his impudence: look at this pitiful weebl, trying to roll back the years. But then, when he breaks the first rank of defenders and homes in on the final three, everybody knows what is going to happen.

The gloriously partisan commentator on the above link screams 'eeehh... atencion!'. On the pitch, you can see the players' faces drop as the reality hits them that, yes, that thing is loaded and, no, he's not afraid to use it. Suddenly Maradona was the only man on the pitch who mattered: two defenders were so panicked that they ran into each other, and nobody followed Claudio Caniggia, who ran free onto Maradona's pass to score the winner. The only other time Maradona met the old enemy at the World Cup, in 1982, he was sent off for sticking his studs into a Brazilian's groin. This time he did it to the entire nation.

The repeated consumption of songs and, to a lesser extent, films allows you to pick up the little things, like lines of dialogue or barely perceptible chord changes, that you hadn't noticed before. With football that is less commonplace, but lying in a darkened room 23/7 watching highlights of old games can reward you when something stands out that you missed on the 37th viewing. Like this piece of play from Alain Giresse, which grows on you like a sleeper hit. It's not that there is any hidden brilliance, just that what at first seems a very good pass soon becomes obviously exceptional (and so much better than Vasily Rats' admittedly brilliant goal, which is what people most remember this game for). Giresse's pass is the sort that makes you want to clamber atop the aesthetic high ground, sneering contemptuously at those who don't appreciate it. Ed Norton once said that people who didn't like Fight Club were not the sort of people he wanted to know. If you were to really embrace snobbery, and that's what we do in these parts, you could take the same stance about this goal.

With nine USSR players dotted within a 15-yard radius of the ball, the margin for error in the weight, arc and timing (look at the pause) of the pass is astonishingly small, like that of an officer of the law trying to shoot a hostage-taker while the hostage's head is being jerked back and forth. It did not involve Michel Platini or Jean Tigana (unless you read the Guardian report, which said that the goal came from a "a clever lob by Tigana", but we won't dwell on that) but, in its insouciant grace and enormous class, this might have been the signature moment of that famous French midfield.

Now, technically an assist should only go to the last person to touch the ball before the scorer, but we're making an exception because, well, this is just ridiculous isn't it? Given the nature of the contribution, and the fact that it's Steve McMahon, it might be tempting to conclude that it's just some neanderthal Anglo-Saxon charging around with the mindless enthusiasm of somebody charging over the top into certain death. But there is so much more to it than that: for a start McMahon could play, and he was also intuitively aware that Arsenal were ragged and on the ropes, and that even the few seconds' breather while Liverpool prepared to take a throw-in might allow them to recover.

So he kept going, like a boxer who rains punches on a wilting opponent as the bell approaches. In this case that meant charging 40 yards to keep the ball in play, almost moulding a shape of his body into an advertising hoarding as a consequence, and then, in a delicious race against time that contributes enormously to the enormous adrenaline hit of this goal, turning to retrieve the ball this much before the onrushing Martin Hayes. Impossible really was nothing. Even a robot would have stopped for a breather at some stage, but McMahon kept going, and still had enough about him to pick a very good pass to Peter Beardsley. The book says that the assist belongs to Beardsley; the tape tells otherwise.

If the brain is most erogenous zone, and scoring a goal is comparable to sex, then... actually we've lost our train here. But the point is that, for all the glorious sleight of foot Bergkamp shows, the best bit is what's going on upstairs. While concentrating furiously to hold off two Juventus defenders, he still has the awareness and peripheral vision to spot Freddie Ljungberg's run - Bergkamp almost knows that Ljungberg has made the run before Ljungberg does - and concoct an unorthodox and perfectly timed pass for him to score. There's also a delicious, unspoken, so very Dutch cockiness, as he teases Paolo Montero and Alessio Tacchinardi as if to say: I am so much better than you that it's an embarrassment, you footballing proles, and now I'm going to prove it. All in all, it was pretty mind-blowing.

Some players take the relatively mundane creation of a goal as an excuse a private celebration, yet after this sublime assist Rivaldo had the look of a man who has accidentally microwaved the family moggy. The reason? Well partly because he was a mardy bugger, but mainly because he came this close to scoring the greatest goal in the history of the game. This really was the most exquisite failure. If ultimately he misjudges the final lob, it is entirely excusable, especially as he was only in that position because of two mind-boggling pieces of skill. The incomparable first touch to control Frank de Boer's long pass would have been beyond even Roy Race or Walter Mitty, and the quickness of mind, never mind surety of technique, to flip it back over Nourredine Naybet's head is almost equally outrageous. Not in our wildest ones could we conceive what Rivaldo does. The ball doesn't even touch the floor. That he didn't quite finish it off almost adds to the legend. The bittersweet endings are always the best.